The four-bedroom house, in East Dunbartonshire, Scotland, was flattened in just a day (right) after it was built 6ft higher, 9ft longer and 4ft wider than originally applied for by car sales manager Andrew Murray and his wife Frances. Mr Murray, 51, paid £164,000 for the building plot and spent a further £300,000 building the 'dream home' (left) despite not having approved planning permission. He splashed out on a fully-fitted designer kitchen at a cost of £27,000 and spent £25,000 putting four bathrooms into the property. However, East Dunbartonshire Council ruled the house had breached regulations and demanded it be demolished.

Bristol's Peter Nunn, 33, (left) retweeted 'menacing' messages threatening to rape Walthamstow MP Stella Creasy (right) and branding her a 'witch', prosecutors allege. He denies charge of sending a grossly offensive, indecent or obscene message by a public electronic network at Westminster Magistrates Court. The trial continues.

The painting, Mobile Lovers, had appeared overnight on a plank of wood screwed to a wall close to the Broad Plain Boys' Club in Banksy's home town of Bristol. The club hoped to sell the piece, only for the artwork to be removed by the city council, who maintained they owned the wall, and put on display in Bristol Museum. But the artist, whose identity is shrouded in mystery, then waded in to the row by writing a letter to Dennis Stinchcombe, who runs the club, giving him his 'blessing' to do what he felt was right with the art.

Phil Lyman, 18, a pupil at £30,000-a-year Wellington College, Berkshire, said he was 'going public' because of the pressure on young people to have sex. The teenager warned fellow pupils in an article for the Wellingtonian, the school magazine, that casual sex 'never works in the long term' because two people become 'emotionally and physically' involved when they have sex. He said boys learned about sex through pornography while girls thought it was romantic - paving the way for heartbreak.

By 9am the mercury had hit 20.1C at Heathrow Airport - and 24.6C (76F) by midday, making London hotter than Rhodes, Rome and Madrid. Forecasters said the places most likely to see the hottest temperatures as well as London would be up to the Midlands, and up towards the North-West.

Officers were called to this house in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, where they found a 37-year-old woman with serious stab wounds. She was taken to hospital but later pronounced dead. Neighbours said the victim was mother-of-three Emma Mansell, pictured with her partner Johnny Sutton. Police also found a nine-year-old boy with a stab wound to his arm outside the home, with a six-year-old boy, an 11-year-old boy and a six-month-old baby girl were also present and treated for minor injuries.

Survivors and families of the victims of the September 11 tragedy are outraged over the souvenirs which will be on sale at the 9/11 Memorial Museum gift shop. Tasteless items available to purchase include toy rescue dogs (top left), mugs (bottom left) and even glass ornaments (inset). The news comes as 8,000 unidentified remains were recently moved to a tomb beneath the museum. A dedication ceremony by President Barack Obama was conducted last week.

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: Beneath the Baroque mansions and iconic squares of central Bucharest, Romania, lies a second city that no tourist gets to see - an underground kingdom of outcasts and drug addicts living in the city's vast network of sewers. Here, everyone is HIV-positive and a quarter have TB, yet they are left to rot in the darkness, huddling against heating pipes and snorting glue to stay warm.

Ryan and Grant Seymour, both 19, were caught on CCTV taking part in mass violence, in Biddulph, Staffordshire, on July 6 last year. A court heard the siblings were seen pelting missiles including a portable television at members of a 'rival' family. A court heard the twins also hurled vases and bottles at their victims - with one brother attacking a group of men with a spanner. But because the brothers are almost impossible to tell apart it was 'unclear who did what'.

Onlookers said they saw the aircraft 'corkscrew' out of the sky, tumbling into a field after it struck another glider in the skies above the village of Great Gransden, Cambridgeshire. Fortunately the pilot managed to bail out of the falling glider and activate his parachute before he tounched down on the roof of a farm outbuilding.

Kim Roberts, 58, left, is accused of taking valuable items from the Dowager Countess Bathurst, top right, while working at her grand Cotswolds estate (right) and Kensington home. Roberts appeared at Gloucester Crown Court on Friday facing three counts of theft, including one count from another previous employer, who claims she took her Volvo.

The sailors are seen on stage in the image, holding trophies on the last day of the event they'd sailed the 40-foot Cheeki Rafiki in - the Antigua Regatta. The crew had joked on social media about their lengthening beards and the food they were eating on their journey back to Southampton. Circled is a picture a merchant vessel took of a capsized boat that could well be the missing Cheeki Rafiki.

The former European Council for Foreign Relations in Westminster is set to be transformed into a set of luxury properties, expected to reach around £5million each when sold. The 22 flats will be the closest residential properties to the Prime Minster's official home in Downing Street and will be less than a mile from Buckingham Palace.

Bringing the tropics to Dymchurch, Kent, Karl Emanuelsson has transformed his home into a luxury Caribbean style retreat - complete with real sand, palm trees and deck chairs. Holiday makers can relax with a drink and listen to music as they bathe under the 'sun', created by cutting edge Swedish technology which replicates natural sunlight. The room is believed to be the only beach room of its kind in the world - and it's even possible to tan safely and without suncream because the light is only as strong as natural sunlight but with greatly reduced UV rays.

Chris Quick, 58, and her husband Keith, 61, of Southsea, had booked and paid for a trip to Benidorm next month to celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary. They were also looking forward to another trip in October to the Spanish resort, where they have friends. But when Mr Quick went to the GP about a persistent cough, the couple were given the devastating news he had lung cancer.

Tara Sawyer, 37, from Wimblington, Cambridgeshire, loves the feeling of being pregnant and refuses to take any payment for surrogacy. 'Surrogacy is very addictive,' said Tara. 'It's a huge rush from the moment the test comes back positive. It's an amazing feeling to hand over a child to someone who desperately wants it, and I feel at my best whilst pregnant.'

A broken sign announces the investment opportunity of the last decade. Beyond the wasteland where it sits rise hundreds of holiday apartments which have never been used. This is the Marina d'Or 'Holiday City' in Oropesa del Mar, north of Valencia on Spain's Mediterreanan coast, which was to be one of the biggest high-density real estate projects of the country's boom. But now, with the financial crisis having all but broken Spain, most of the complex's homes and shops stand empty. Meanwhile, its developer has collapsed under the weight of its debts.

Smiling widely as he bounces a child on his knee Kim Jong-Un poses during a photo call as it is revealed he is finding it 'difficult' to sleep following the collapse of a 23-storey tower block in North Korea. The release of a series of images from a hospital visit coincidences with the publication of photos showing relatives crying as a North Korean official apologies for the building's collapse in Pyongyang at the weekend - an unusual move from the secretive state.

Young royal cut a solemn figure as he viewed British war graves on the second day of his tour to Italy. cut a solemn figure as he viewed British war graves on the second day of his tour to Italy. The serving Army officer, who has fought in Afghanistan, paid his respects to the fallen at the Cassino Commonwealth War Cemetery.

Real Betis midfielder Alfred N'Diaye was quick to act and cradle a young fan to safety from the wreckage after the collapse of a fence in the stands of Osasuna's El Sadar Stadium. The on-loan Sunderland star was on hand immediately after the incident caused during celebrations for the home side's opening goal after 12 minutes through Oriol Riera. Elated fans for the relegation-threatened host went into raptures after the strike before spilling onto the pitch when the fence gave way.

The idea is being introduced as a pilot project at Lianshui County Chinese Medicine Hospital in east China's Jiangsu province where all staff working in the Chinese medicine ward are required to dress in the air hostess outfits. The move is seen as a way of addressing growing conflict in the country between staff and patients and their relatives.

Poppy the tortoiseshell cat from Bournemouth, Dorset, who was born in February 1990 and lived through five British prime ministers, has picked up the title. The moggy is now frail and spends most of her time indoors, but she has been recognised by Guinness World Records - and is one year younger than Misao Okawa of Japan, the world's oldest person.

EXCLUSIVE: Billy is an eight-year-old Jack Russell who lives with Carol Willacy, 45, in Fleetwood, Lancashire. Ms Willacy has severe arthritis so Billy helps her with day to day tasks including opening and closing doors, picking things up from the floor and helping her take her shoes off. He also saved her life by running to find a neighbour when she collapsed in her garden last summer and, on anther occasion, licked her face until she woke up when she fainted and was unconscious for two hours in freezing temperatures.

Authorities laid out their haul for the cameras in a bid to reinforce their determination to crack down on illicit drugs in the South American country, which was long the world's leading cocaine producer.

The sign was set up last week to flag potential delays caused by a fun run, but instead the ominous messages 'Godzilla Attack' and 'Turn Back' were displayed. The joke messages appeared just before Godzilla stomped all over the competition by taking top spot at the box office at the weekend, raking in $93.2million.

Photographer Derrick Lin, 38, from Columbus, Ohio, has created scenes using mini figurines that illustrate the everyday goings-on of a busy marketing agency. The scenes include police guarding sweets (top left) – the office ‘currency’ - stressful phone calls turning workers grey (top right), how meetings don’t always go according to plan (bottom left) and the all-important coffee break (bottom right) .

Forget the Top of the Rock or the Empire State - the best view of the New York City on Sunday was from the air, as members of the Red Bull Air Force Wingsuit Flyers accomplished a dream of gliding over Manhattan. The elite athletes, who have performed at locations all over the world, started at the southern tip of the island, above the Financial District, jumping from a plane sitting at 7,500 feet. Traveling at speeds of 120 mph, they headed uptown on the west side, landing about two miles away from the starting point on a barge on the Hudson River.